History

Through the Years 1959-2010 by Brian Logan

The Logan’s started their skateboarding careers in 1959 at the ages of 8&9 years old. At that time there was Brian the oldest and Bruce. Brad & Robin did not start until 1963. We were living on 5th street in Hermosa Beach right on the Strand. We would take steel wheel skates and take them apart and nail them to a 2×4 with a milk box on top with handles. As we improved we took off the box and the handles and rode on the 2×4 and the steel wheels.
Through the Years

ABC 1965 Skateboard Contest
Logans Dominate! Bruce begins his career

By the early 1960’s along came Chicago Trucks and Chicago clay wheels. We would go to Pier Ave. Jr. High School tennis courts everyday and weekends to practice our moves.

All 3 Logan boys would eventually go to school there. In 1961 we started a skateboard club and called it The South Bay Skateboard Club. Some of the other skateboarders on our club included Biff Collins, Joey Hellerman John & Jamie Guild to name a few. Our younger brother Brad and younger sister Robin were too young to be even considered to be on the club as they were only 6 & 2 years old. Every week we would have club meetings in our garage.We didnt know exactly what we were doing back then but we thought it was cool to have our own club. It was at one of these meetings that we decided to make “T” shirts and jackets, we had no sponsors at this time. We would wear them all the time to Pier Ave. to practice.

Pier Avenue Jr. High is the home of the first ever skateboard contest. Skateboarding started growing.There were many competitions and demostrations to follow. Some of the parents and our Mother (aka Mother Earth Ski) would share in driving us to these contests. Then sometime in 1964 we finally got a sponsor. We lived about 3 blocks from the Bing Surfboard shop on Pacific Coast. Hwy. Many days after school we would go there and just hang out just talking to the guy who ran Bing’s retail store, his name was Brian McGuiness. Brian was a big brother type that I never had. He took an interest in us like the big brother type. He noticed how good Bruce and I were on skateboards. As skateboarding was getting much more recognition and many surfboard manufacturers starting putting together their own skateboard teams he talked to Bing Copeland and they decided to be our team sponsor, we then changed the team name to the Bing Skateboard Team. Then we thought we made the big time a big name surfboard manufacturer behind us and free equipment, it doesnt get any better then that when you are that young and in that era.

We would compete against other teams in team competition and individual competition and from what I remember we never lost one team competition except when we were on the first Surfing Show on T.V. called Surf’s Up with Stan Richards. This was the first time skateboarding was on T.V. and this was Live! Bing & Brian got the team on the show. There were about 8 or so other teams competing on the show, the top 3 were invited back and we were one of the 3 along with Kip’s and I think the other team was Hobie. The Bing team ended up getting 2nd place behind Kip’s team. Except on Surf’s Up we never did have a one on one team competition against Kip’s though, that would have been interesting, as they were very good.

A Little Story Story: About a year ago I met a guy down in Baja on a surfing trip and he told me that he was on the Dewey Weber Skateboard Team back then and he was on that show. He said after that show he quit skateboarding because of us and our team. He said he never skateboarded again, we both just laughed! He was the first person after all these years 45 or so to be exact that I ran into that was on that same show, it was way cool to run into him. This part of our skateboarding life was so long ago so much of it and what all happened during that time was a big part of our early childhood.

In 1965 came the biggest contest of all the Anaheim National Skateboard Championships and ABC Wide World Of Sports was there to film this event for television. Many kids from around the country came and competed, we never saw anything like this before. During my freestyle I just fell apart in my routine, I was so nervous but not Bruce. He was one of the last ones to skate his routine. I remember the announcer from ABC say and next up is Bruce Logan from Hermosa Beach, look at him he is such a little guy! I am not kidding Bruce was 14 at the time but looked 7-8 years old, he was very little for his age. He was not perfect in his routine but it got him a 2nd place behind a kid named Torger Johnson who was so hot with his space walk and the crowd just went crazy over it, Torger got 1st place. There is a lot I have left out form those days but those were a few of the highlights.

As we continue building our website we will talk about all of the skaters who were part of us from the late 50’s thru 1980 and from the early days of South Bay Skateboard Club to the Bing Skateboard Team to the days of Logan Earth Ski……………….